


In Which Loki Totally Saves the Avengers

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Loki Redemption, Loki and Darcy are implied friends/lovers?, Loki-centric, This Is My, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 16:23:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2315900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki saves the Avengers one too many times, and Natasha starts to get suspicious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Loki Totally Saves the Avengers

“Anyone out there?” Natasha pants down her mike. “Anyone copy? I repeat, the Avengers request backup immediately at the corner of 35th and Park Avenue." She fires again at the aliens, feeling in her pockets for another round for her handguns. Natasha can’t find one, and she must fumble for too long because Clint tosses her a spare. She nods at him, loads the clip, and goes right back to shooting the ugly bastards.  
Tony is flying around above them, making sure they don’t get killed by the ones that can fly. Steve is somewhere around here, killing them with his shield, and Bruce has completely disappeared.  
All in all, it isn’t going very well for them. Natasha privately thinks that they aren’t going to make it out of this alive unless backup arrives soon. The aliens just keep coming, and it’s getting harder and harder to kill them. They seem to be learning better and better ways to avoid the team.  
That’s about when Bucky Barnes shows up. Clad in a black suit, riding a gleaming motorcycle, dark hair hanging in front of his eyes, he cuts an imposing figure. His metal arm glints in the fading daylight, and Natasha could kiss him. Steve pulls him into a one armed hug and then Tony swoops down and grabs him by the arm, depositing the sniper on a nearby rooftop. A moment later, shots start ringing out, felling the aliens with astonishing accuracy.  
Natasha will admit to having some doubts about him, initially. They’d been in the Red Room together, and he’d seemed a little…intense then. Mentally as well as physically. To put it frankly, he was a ticking time bomb. But Steve seemed to trust him, and that was good enough for Natasha.  
But it still wasn’t going to be enough, she can tell. There simply were too many for them to overcome. She reaches behind her for Clint’s hand and prays that whatever is to come, they will remain together.  
Suddenly, a blast of green energy erupts from a nearby rooftop. A tall, slender figure leaps down and lands gracefully on his feet. It is Loki, and Natasha has to restrain herself from dashing his brains out on sight. After what he put Clint through, it is difficult. But she manages.  
Loki lets loose a burst of magic, and the alien creatures keel over simultaneously, wailing in pain. “Well?” he calls. “Are you just going to stand there?” His voice holds no menace, just a deep seated exhaustion. Because the entire team has frozen in shock and Natasha isn’t sure she can blame them. Since, from where she stands, it looks as if Loki (Crazier than a bag of cats Loki) has just saved their lives. Natasha wonders briefly what has happened to the man.  
Then the fight resumes. They move among the aliens, slaughtering them mercilessly. Unfortunately, whatever had been keeping them in pain stops after about a minute, and it’s back to pitched battle. Loki proves to be invaluable during this, using illusions to distract while the real him kills droves of the creatures.  
By the time the battle is over, he has disappeared.  
Later that night, they tell Thor all about it, and ask for an explanation. The Norse god merely smiles secretively and says, “Lady Darcy Lewis can be a most wholesome influence, it seems.”  
And that’s where they leave it.  
Two weeks later, Steve and Bucky return from a mission in Prague muttering about “that bastard” and “the little punk” respectively. And Natasha figures Loki’s been playing at being a hero again.  
So when Bucky’s alone in the kitchen late at night, she takes the opportunity to ask him in private. She creeps up behind him and taps the former assassin on the shoulder, forgetting for a moment the programming they both possess. He twists around with stunning speed and is holding a throwing knife to her throat before she can make a sound.  
When Bucky realizes who he’s holding in a choke, he relaxes just enough for her to breathe again. “Natashenka,” he says. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”  
Natasha ignores his comment. “Does Steve know you still react like that?” she asks.  
The knife falls away from her throat and Bucky averts his eyes, looking almost ashamed before his feigned bravado reasserts itself. And it is feigned. She can tell. “What Steve doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”  
“Unless he sneaks up on you in the middle of the night,” Natasha amends.  
“Yeah.” He straightens. “What did you want to talk about?”  
“What happened on your last mission?”  
Bucky meets her eyes carefully. “Nothing all that interesting. Doctor Doom was doing some stuff that needed to be taken care of. We dealt with it.”  
“You know what I’m talking about, Barnes. When you both got back, you kept talking to yourselves about someone. I can only assume it was Loki. So why don’t you tell me about it?”  
He sighs. “Yeah, okay. Loki was there. Doctor Doom was blowing up this hospital and he just shows up and starts evacuating patients. Tells me and Steve to go and deal with Doom. And when we get back, there’s no sign of him.”  
“How many?” Natasha asks. Not that it really matters, but she’s too busy thinking about other things to control what comes out of her mouth at this point.  
Bucky runs his metal hand through his hair, leaving it tousled. “I don’t know, but a lot more than would have gotten out otherwise. Maybe forty? Fifty? I was a little busy keeping Steve from getting killed to count.”  
She nods. “Thanks, Bucky. Don’t stay up too late.”  
The next person Natasha goes to is Coulson. She doesn’t sneak up on him in the dark, because she’d probably be dead in seconds. He booby traps his apartment extensively, from what Clint has told her.  
So Natasha approaches him in the middle of the day, when he’s in a lab filled with other people, and the risk of her being killed is minimal. Because damned if she'll admit it, but Coulson scares her a little bit.  
She pulls him aside in the middle of a conversation with Fitz and Simmons, who are working on something…sciencey. “Yes?” Coulson asks brusquely.  
“Permission to go after Loki, sir,” Natasha replies.  
Coulson blinks, the only measure of surprise she is likely to receive. She considers it a victory. “Why on earth would you want to do that, Romanov? He’s far better left alone.”  
“He’s been interfering in SHIELD operations,” Natasha says, and couldn’t be more surprised when he raises an eyebrow. The gesture prompts her to continue. “When the aliens were here, and again when Doctor Doom was doing that thing in Prague. Yeah, I know about that.”  
“Go ahead,” Coulson says. “I want a report on this in two weeks.”  
“Understood, sir,” Natasha nods and heads up to the tech lab. She enters it and stalks over to one of the monitors, where a new recruit is typing furiously at the keyboard. She clears her throat. The kid ignores her. Natasha snaps, and his gaze leaps to her chest. “Face is up here?” she says, pointing at her eyes.  
“Sorry,” he mutters.  
“I need you to do one of those face traces,” Natasha orders, and it’s to the credit of Coulson’s training program that he starts the program immediately. “Thanks.”  
“Who for?”  
“Loki.” That gets her an odd look. But he does it anyway. And Loki is in Spain this very minute, admiring works in the Prado Museum. “He’s up to something, I knew it,” she mutters.  
It only takes Natasha a record five hours to get to Madrid, using some of Stark’s newest technology. She spends a few hours figuring out exactly where the god is staying, and then getting there. By this time, it is nearly one in the morning. Natasha picks the lock to the warehouse as quietly as she can, then slips in and starts looking for Loki.  
She finds him in the kitchen, sipping a glass of red wine. “Could you have been much louder?” Loki asks.  
Natasha ignores this slight on her skills, pinning it up to his super hearing or some other godly power. “Where’s Darcy?” she asks instead.  
“Dublin. Why?”  
“Why were you in the Prado Museum earlier this afternoon? Planning some kind of burglary?”  
“I was enjoying the works of Goya and Velasquez. What more do you expect from a genuine art fan such as myself?” He’s not giving anything up. So she tries something else.  
“What were you doing in Prague?”  
She must hit a nerve, because he takes a sip of wine and looks out the window. “Helping. What did it look like?”  
“I don’t know; I wasn’t there. And New York?”  
Loki snorts delicately. “Don’t tell me you could have managed. I was there. You wouldn’t have lasted another two minutes had I not stepped in.”  
Natasha studies him. “What do you want?”  
“To be left alone.”  
“Then why do you keep interceding? You could be left alone quite nicely if we were all dead.” She tilts her head and takes a step closer. “Mind if I have a glass of wine?”  
He waves a hand towards the bottle. “Please.” Then Loki stares contemplatively into his own glass as Natasha pours hers. “Odin would make my life hell if Thor was killed.”  
“Don’t give me that. Thor wasn’t even there the last two times.” Natasha takes a sip of the wine. It is drier than she had expected, and she flinches a little at the taste.  
“I’ve changed, Agent Romanov, since we last spoke. I met some people in my exile from Asgard that changed my point of view on a number of different things.”  
“I don’t buy that one bit.”  
Loki raises an eyebrow. “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to find a way to do so, Agent Romanov. As it’s the truth. Which I do not tell very often.” He smirks. “God of mischief and all that.”  
“You’re still immortal?”  
“Odin seems to think that I have some potential after our very long father son discussion.” He mimes air quotes around the last three words. “And apparently he thinks Darcy has some use as well.”  
Natasha tilts her head curiously. “Darcy?”  
But Loki ignores her. “My turn to ask. What are you doing here?”  
“I wasn’t aware we were taking turns.”  
“It seems only fair. You got to ask me so many questions; should I not get some?” She doesn’t reply. “I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”  
“You’ve been interfering in SHIELD operations. Someone was bound to come asking questions sooner or later. You just got lucky that it was me.”  
“How is that lucky?”  
“I’m less likely to kill you on the spot than some new recruit who’s never handled a weapon before.”  
Loki exhales sharply in what might have been a laugh. “Indeed. I am truly blessed.”  
“So why are you helping us when you don’t have to?”  
He tuts. “Come now, Agent Romanov. Can a man not do good deeds simply because he wishes to? Is there some rule against that?”  
“When said man has led an intergalactic battle against the people of the world and killed eighty of them personally, never mind how many died in the battle, then yeah. There’s kind of a rule against that.”  
“Touché. I don’t suppose you could be convinced that I’ve changed and become a more decent person?”  
Natasha folds her arms, setting down the wine glass, and leans back against the cabinet. “Only if it’s the truth.”  
Loki takes another sip. “An interesting concept, the truth. To some people, you and I and that Barnes man are all relics of a faded empire, twisted and cracked, but still of use. To some, we are monsters that need to be slain. To a select few, we are human beings. For you, it is the archer. For Barnes, the soldier. By that logic, may I not have a person who believes that I am still a human being?” Natasha shifts uncomfortably. “And they are all true assessments, Agent Romanov. Think about it. Now, I believe that your flight out of here leaves in,” he checks his watch, “seven hours. You might want to get some rest.”  
She straightens, recognizing the tone of dismissal in his voice, and nods once. Natasha has outstayed her welcome. To remain longer could border on danger, and she doesn’t want to deal with that.  
“Good night,” Loki calls as she heads for the door, “And do try to be less noisy on your way out.” To spite him, she slams the door as hard as she can, smirking at the noise of disgust she can still hear.  
Bucky meets her at La Guardia, dressed in a black hoodie and gloves to cover his metal arm. She almost doesn’t see him until he takes hold of her upper arm and she nearly hits him in the head with her suitcase. “Well?” he says, voice tightly controlled.  
“Why do you dislike him so much, anyway?” Natasha asks. “He’s never done anything to you personally.”  
Bucky considers this for a moment. “He could have killed Steve, and I wasn’t around to stop it. I can’t forgive that.”  
Natasha nods. It is how she feels whenever she thinks about the time when Clint was possessed, a roiling anger deep in her belly. “I don’t know what’s up with him. He seems different.”  
He scoffs quietly, then meets her gaze. “Be careful, Natasha. He’s still smarter than all of us put together.”  
Natasha submits the following report to Director Coulson the following week.  
Agent: Natasha Romanov  
Operation: Spring Onion  
Objective: Find and assess the mental condition of Loki Laufeyson, enemy to SHIELD.  
Report: Sir. You should really update this form. Anyway, I talked to Loki in Madrid, and he seems a bit different. I don’t know if I’d say he’s no longer a threat, but he seems to be almost benign towards us. I firmly believe that through the effects of one Darcy Lewis, he will attempt to assist us again, and we should not rebuff his efforts. In conclusion, he could become a valuable asset to SHIELD given time and the proper treatment by us.  
Conclusion: Loki Laufeyson should be kept on a 12 month probation, as potential associate of SHIELD. Should he voluntarily participate in actions that are hostile towards SHIELD or the safety of the free world, he should be immediately taken into custody. If, at the end of these twelve months, he has not broken these terms, he should be left alone. That’s really all he wants.  
A/N-This came from an idea I had. It’s actually kind of confusing, because SHIELD still exists, but Bucky has been rescued and rehabilitated from the whole HYDRA thing. So I place this a couple of years after Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  
Also, I kind of wonder how Darcy and Loki met. What would that have even been like?

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know where this came from. I'm really sorry. And I named the operation Spring Onion because that's what Loki's name means in Latvian.


End file.
